Re: [Dorset] Nexus 7 virus software, any problems?
Terry, as I give up preaching to the unconvertible, consider my last parting shot carefully... This medium is supposed to be a LUG, The difference between virusen and malware is no more pedantic than whether I achieve my computing aims using Linux or Windows or ios. This difference is what steve jobs recognised and trapped his user base into limiting the spread of malware very successfully. Google with its Play Store is commendably attempting the same thing. Regards Andy On Wednesday 02 January 2013 18:36:58 Terry Coles wrote: On Tuesday 01 Jan 2013 19:29:51 Andrew R Paterson wrote: you state Certainly, on desktop Linux, there are far more virus signatures in the virus database than there are known viruses that attack Linux. Thats an interesting fact, pray where did you get it from? particularily the known viruses that attack linux bit. Andrew, I think you are being a little pedantic. When most people refer to viruses, they include Trojans, socially engineered malware and anything else that can generally break your machine. Similarly, virus scanners on Windows don't just scan for viruses; they look for all known malware and that is what the 'virus scanners on Android would appear to do. Google has its PLay Store just as Apple has its app store - there is no reason for one to be more vulnerable than the other. Natalie et al have already answered this one. I remember the days of Nobody got fired for buying IBM the hayday of FUD. Now it seems the AV producers are doing the same thing. You don't have to be a genius to realise that there would be no market for AV developers without viruses. True, but that doesn't stop the malware authors. I am still waiting for someone to detail a genuine UNIX (or LInux) virus as opposed to just being stupid and dowloading and running a script rm -rf /. I don't believe that the few genuine Linux/Unix 'viruses' (or malware items if you prefer) are that simple. In my original post, I did say that the only attack vector on Linux is probably social engineering, but since the average Android user is not a top-notch software engineer, they are likely to fall for this every time. I would hope that I wouldn't, but since I am also not a top- notch software engineer, I prefer to play it safe. Everyone gets fooled now and again. I agree about android running things as a single user, but there is a difference with malware and viruses. AV software can find viruses but malware is up to the user. See above. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2013-01-08 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Nexus 7 virus software, any problems?
I strongly believe (feel free to correct me please!) that most (if not all) the AV software you get for Linux (and android?) is just using the same signature databases as the main windows versions and thus all you are doing is ensuring you don't download any windows viruses. As I say, please prove me wrong :) I also use Avast (on my windows boxes) and am indeed happy with it - but AV s/w for Linux and android - show me some proof that they actually do something (and don't tell me they are root-checkers please!). Andy On Tuesday 01 January 2013 09:24:48 Terry Coles wrote: On Monday 31 Dec 2012 21:04:59 Clive A Wills wrote: Now I know some of you have the Nexus 7 and would like to know if there are any problems with virus' and if a virus programme is required. Also how pleased/good is it; reviews have all been good. (£199 in PC World and £189 in Argos) PC World staff get a commission if they sell 'add-ons' with any computer. I have no idea how much PC World charge for Norton for Android, but the online price is £29.99, which makes a big difference when the device itself is less than £200. I don't have a Nexus 7, but I do own an Android phone; there isn't really any difference as you point out. Android *is* vulnerable to viruses (as is Linux if they are targeted to it). It is also a single user OS, where the owner has root privileges, so, as with Windows, any viruses don't have to overcome basic security to get installed. Unlike Linux, (or rather the Linux we are all familiar with, since Android is a Linux distribution), it has a very large user base which is growing every day. This means that there is much more incentive to attack it than Linux, so it doesn't hurt to take some precautions. As you say, you still have to agree to install the software, so there are no 'drive by' vulnerabilities. I would be surprised if the virus count for Android ever got to be anything like Windows. What you don't need to do is pay through the nose for Norton Antivirus. There are several free ones and some have a paid-for Premium version. I-- calendar use Lookout: https://www.lookout.com/. The Premium version offers some useful additional features for $29.99 per year, but if all you need is anti-virus, the free version works fine. My wife uses the Avast offering: http://www.avast.com/en-gb/free-mobile-security. We have used Avast on our Windows machines for around 10 years now and the only time we got a virus was when my son turned it off. Both Apps are available from the Google Play Store once you have your device. The chances are, if the user is careful about what he or she installs, then they will never get a virus on Android. So the story is nowhere near as bad as on Windows, which is almost guaranteed a virus if you don't run a scanner. I mainly installed Lookout for the peace of mind and the location service, which will allow me to locate the phone if it is lost or stolen. In the end, it's up to the user whether they bother. There aren't many viruses reported for Android, so the chances are there will never be a problem. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2013-01-08 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Nexus 7 virus software, any problems?
Hi Clive, I have a Nexus 7 and have absolutely filled it with (mostly free) downloads and except for accidentally unrooting it after initially rooting it - I have (as expected) NOT been hit by any Viruses. You should have asked the assistant if that meant that all the Android based mobile phones were returned/damaged by virus attacks too! I am very pleased with my Nexus 7 and blame myself entirely for accidentally unrooting it. Unfortunately, if I root it again I suspect I would have to reload all the apps I have downloaded. But to be honest rooting it didn't really give me any real benefits anyway. Its a well-made machine with which I make a fool of the rest of my family with their expensive ipads. SInce Android is basically linux/Java and you are conferring on a linux lug, you surely don't run antivirus software on your linux box do you? Regards Andy On Monday 31 December 2012 21:04:59 Clive A Wills wrote: Hi All First, can I wish you all a very Happy New Year. Today we were in PC World looking at the Nexus 7, as my son-in-law is thinking to get one; however the assistant stressed that it was very important to get a good anti-virus software installed (Norton) as so many tablets had been returned/damaged by virus attacks, and it is not covered by warranty. A very long discussion then took place about how vulnerable Android was to attack, because it was 'open source' and the Apps were not controlled, unlike Apple Apps. Well; I gave up trying to say that it was not possible to get a virus unless you accepted the request to run the programme. They were obviously 'White Washed' against open software. Now I know some of you have the Nexus 7 and would like to know if there are any problems with virus' and if a virus programme is required. Also how pleased/good is it; reviews have all been good. (£199 in PC World and £189 in Argos) I don't think virus' are a problem but would like confirmation please, to pass on to my son-in-law (he's a Mac and Apple Iphone/Ipad advocate). Also any grips against it. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2013-01-08 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] New member
On Wednesday 04 July 2012 10:01:42 p.lane wrote: On 04/07/2012 09:45, Tim wrote: On 03/07/12 20:45, Graeme Gemmill wrote: I have just found this LUG, so this is an introductory message. I have used Mandrake/Mandriva for several years, and read and occasionally contribute to the alt.os.linux.mandriva news group. Living in Litton Cheney, I intend to attend the next meeting held in Dorchester to meet other Linux users. This may be a bit early to be asking for advice/recommendations, but I am interested in implementing a Linux-based NAS to provide additional data security on my home network accessible from Mandriva and Windows OSs. Regards Graeme Hi Graema, Welcome to Dlug A lot will depend on the type of NAS you are after, I have a single Disk NAS from Lacie which has a linux based OS but is aimed really at the windows market. I have not tried or even know if it is possible to hack the OS. I can mount it on my linux box and it works and have mounted it on windows boxes so other in the family can access it. I normally back this up on a monthly basis via rsync, it was backed up more regularly at one stage but the data is not added to, changed or deleted that frequently at the moment so there no need for more regular backups. If you are looking at a multi disk nas, then you could try building one to suit, I looked at doing similar a while ago and kept this link as the basis of how I would go about it http://matthewlai.ca/blog/?p=968 I have no idea if it is any good in real life Hope it helps Tim Hi. I'm a new member myself. Linksys, Buffalo DNS all sell good, reasonably priced Linux comapatible NAS devices. It all comes down to how much you need to store, whether you want to mirror 2 or 4 or 8 drives what yuo know about RAID how much you can afford. Don't consider DROBO.nice but slow is a type of X-RAID so a proprietary format even tho they say LINUX compatible, I know they are not LINUX friendly. BTW all, being a sys admin and having worked with a number of large scale RAID detups - EMC Netapps etc Sun DiskSuite, if anyone is interested, I'll post a RAID fyi. Phil. Hi Graeme, welcome to Dlug. I have to ask why you think you need a ready built NAS as opposed to a File Server. You can add lots a disks to an existing linux system, have fun configuring linux raid and even use the file server for other things (a normal desktop perhaps) and then export the raid filesystems to your LAN with Samba and NFS and you wouldnt know the difference. I bought a cheap NAS once and thanks to its complete lack of expansion prospects ended up chucking it away and adding raid to my linux file server which now has some multi-terabyte shared file-systems. Regards Andy -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2012-07-03 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread on mailing list: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] off topic Cable TV ITV1 subtitles service
On Tuesday 18 January 2011, chris.b.c...@ntlworld.com wrote: hi i am sure that some of you are Virgin media customers. My prob is that there is no subtitles on ITV1 at present and has been for best part of 24 hrs or so in Poole. All the other channels are ok, including ITV1+1. Can you please confirm the situation on ITV1. Sky and Freeview customers have no probs, it was confirmed Meridian ITV told me this afternoon the subtitle data feed to Virgin Media is ok and they are adamant is down to virgin media. i found them unhelpful this morning on another problem. My daughter called them last night to fix this problem and then shortly we lost cable tv and broadband. We got our tv back at mid morning. As If anything, nothing has changed somewhat as regards to subtitles service. My wife is dependant on subtitles as part of her viewing I did reboot both samsung cable tv boxes here. I was annoyed when customer service asked me if my cable modem was switched on when the whole thing was down ! Also, I know a V/m customer in southbourne has the same problem thanks Chris -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-02-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue Hi Chris, I am a virgin media user, but I dont use their cable tv service because I dont want any of the extra channels and freeview is just as good otherwise. Of course I can confirm that Meridian subtitles are ok on Freeview analogue (but you prob. know that). I am deaf therefore use subtitles all the time. I would suggest you tell Virgin that you are taking the issue up with the RNID and then speak to someone at the RNID - this should remind Virgin that they are messing with disability laws here. Regards Andy -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-02-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] nepomukserver
On Thursday 06 January 2011, Brian Masterman wrote: I have just been struggling to kill off a set of processes that were gobbling up all my CPU time. nepomukserver checking on the web revealed that lots of people were having the same problem. I uninstall all reference to it which removed sooo much, but it was still running. Eventually I did a search in my home directory to see what was configuring it so, in $HOME/.config there was mention of it in Trolltech.conf, removing this, then killing the processes stopped nepomukserver from respawning. Now I need to find out what damage I have done. Brian M -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2011-01-11 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue I'm glad someone else has noticed this. I am running out of disk space in my home partition thanks to the terrible trio - akonadi, strngi nepomuk. When I first came across these I thought - eh! viruses! You are right, they absolutely slug my system (FC12) and to cap it all, when trying to figure out where all my disk space has gone I find : ~/.kde/share/apps consumes 6638984 blocks! with ~/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/repository/main/data/virtuosobackend containing: 816 soprano-virtuoso.cpt-after-recov 6617412 soprano-virtuoso.db 2736soprano-virtuoso.log 0 soprano-virtuoso.pxa 2052soprano-virtuoso-temp.db 0 soprano-virtuoso.trx 5684soprano-virtuoso.trx-after-recov Which is I believe a mysql database. I really dont want this garbage and on browsing the net I find lots of people with similar opinions. Whatever has happened to KDE to have them foist this on us? If I (try to) turn nepomuk off, I Iose things like my kmail address book (kmail being the most important thing to me at the moment). What is going on - has kde been taken over by microsoft I'm angry! Andy -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2011-01-11 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] dorset Digest, Vol 360, Issue 5
On Friday 26 November 2010, Andrew R Paterson wrote: On Friday 26 November 2010, Brian R Masterman wrote: I would appreciate any advise and help on networking. (they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing). I have been running etherape and it shows that my Linux system is sending out a lot of packets to IP addresses. I do do not have anything running (that I know of) and disconnecting from the Internet shows that these connections are still shown, but they are removed after time-outs occur. Doing a 'netstat -a' shows a lot of connected states. (even tho' I have unplugged the router connection to the Internet). (I have run 'transmission' for a torrent download some time back which may be the cause of the connections, but that is not running). It would appear that somewhere, something is trying to re-establish connections to the systems out on the Internet. I would expect to have no connections, especially when I have nothing communicating to the Internet. (maybe things like the update manager). My Linux build is the Ultimate Edition 2.8 - Ubuntu 10 based) Brian M -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue Hi Brian, netstat -ape should show the pids of the offending processes/ Regards Andy Oh and you can also try your luck with lsof: e.g. lsof -i TCP:39895 to see what pid owns tcp/39895 man lsof is your friend -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] cd question
On Monday 22 November 2010, Peter Merchant wrote:
On Mon, 2010-11-22 at 19:30 +, John Carlyle-Clarke wrote:
On 22/11/10 18:05, Tim wrote:
I am a cli dunce so please bear with me.
Lets say I am working in the terminal screen in the following folder
m...@computer:~#/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5 mv blah
blah.
Now I want to go back to work in folder2, what the easy command to get
me back there??
I have to move a lot of files (1 and 2) between a lot of folders and
retyping the full path everytime is wearing my keyboard out!!
All the other suggestions are excellent, but let's have some more ;)
You could use shell variables to remember the paths:
src=/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5
dst=/folder1/folder2
Then use cd $src and cd $dst as required, or mv somefile $dst
(The quotes stop things breaking if the paths have spaces in them.)
Or, how about doing (in folder5):-
ls files
vim files
(OR nano files, OR gedit files, as you prefer)
Delete the ones you don't want to move, then save the file and:
dest=/folder1/folder2; while read -r file; do mv $file $dest; done
files
(That's all on one line but it may wrap here)
That should do a move for each filename, one per line, in files.
Another way is with find, if the files have some criteria you can
define. Find has a lot of options, and can be a bit daunting, but a
good pattern to remember is:-
find [paths] [tests] [actions]
The default path is . and the default action is print, so just
typing find will recursively list files in the current directory and
subdirectories.
For example,
find -mtime -1 -maxdepth 1
Will print file names of files modified more recently than 24 hours ago
in this directory only (will not go into subdirectories).
There are many ways to use this. You could do:-
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' files
To send all files modified in the last two days matching foo* to a file
called files, and then use the mechanism above.
Another way is to use the pattern:-
find stuff -exec command '{}' \;
That's a bit odd looking, but command gets executed for each file
found, replacing '{}' with the name. For example:-
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' -exec mv '{}' /folder1/folder2
(The first time, you may want to do..
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' -exec echo mv '{}' /folder1/folder2
)
(You can probably stop here if this is getting too much, or have a cup
of tea and come back ... )
You can also use xargs, which takes files on the standard input and
executes a command, passing them as arguments to it. There are ways to
control what to do if nothing is passed, or how many arguments at once
the command can take. See man xargs for more.
Here's an example:-
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' | xargs rm -i
This will delete all files that find matches. It's easy if you want all
the files chained onto the end of the command, but you don't so you have
to use another option for xargs:-
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' /folder1/folder2
Here, -I specifies some arbitrary string which gets replaced with the
items being fed into xargs.
There's one more strange thing you might see, and that is to avoid the
fact that here files are 1 per line, but it is technically possible for
a filename to contain a line break. You can make find spit things out
separated with a NULL character instead, and tell xargs to expect this.
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' -print0 | xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}'
/folder1/folder2
One last bit of polish:-
find -mtime -2 -iname 'foo*' -print0 | xargs --no-run-if-empty -0 -I
'{}' mv '{}' /folder1/folder2
That's probably self-explanatory.
I know the above look a bit odd at first, but I found I'd learn them one
formula at a time and each time I needed to do something different,
I'd learn a variation, and so on.
Have fun!
And my wife complains that under MS Windows there are so many ways to do
things and why couldn't they just have one way to do it.
I am lazy. From the terminal I would just type in 'sudo dolphin' and
split the display to move them.
Peter
--
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As an old time UNIX cli man thats exactly what I would have done!
Its exactly what they invented drag'n'drop for :)
--
Andy Paterson
--
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Re: [Dorset] cd question
On Tuesday 23 November 2010, Peter Merchant wrote: On Mon, 2010-11-22 at 22:51 +, Victor Churchill wrote: On 22 November 2010 20:56, Peter Merchant madsmad...@netscape.net wrote: And my wife complains that under MS Windows there are so many ways to do things and why couldn't they just have one way to do it. I am lazy. From the terminal I would just type in 'sudo dolphin' and split the display to move them. Watch out, you'll get me started about emacs ;-) I remember using emacs on the PT-121(?) terminals at Plessey. I think I threw out the user guide for it about a year ago. PM -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue HOWEVER! I recently worked somewhere where we had to access masses of servers throughout the country over the internet (some vpn - some not) and I can tell you that a simple telnet/netterm tty login was the _only_ way and it was VERY effective - particularily when logging in via a terminal concentrator to reboot something like a sun server (i.e console only access) . So there is a LOT of life left in in tty (CLI) only access yet! -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] dorset Digest, Vol 358, Issue 8
On Saturday 13 November 2010, Ralph Corderoy wrote: Hi Brian, (glad to know that Andy Paterson is in your group, we used to work together) I used to work with Andy too. Including you there's at least four of us that used to work at that site on the list. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue Gosh I am truly humbled to be remembered by such eminent people. Thank you for the Honourable mention - Si Smith is a more deserving one methinks! The site in question was quite a place in those days. BORE You may be interested to know that I am now bionic! (aka MIchael Chorost - Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human) Alas the processor I use is not based on Linux but is 100% ASIC. Other brands use standard (but sophisticated) DSP's I know not if any are using embedded linux! /BORE -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Somewhere quiet, Bournemouth, ???day 2010-12-?? 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] 10 Things I'd change in linux
On Tuesday 02 November 2010, Natalie Hooper wrote: @Sean - I've been using Linux since 2005, though I didn't use it at all in 2008/early 2009. As stated before, these things don't stop ME from using Linux/Ubuntu/whatever app I use, but from my experience, they stop new users from using Linux/Ubuntu. I'm not sure where you understand that I wanted to impose my views on how to make it user-friendly - the reason I posted this is to get a whole range of views, not to push my views. Also, it was inspired by an existing article - in fact, about half of the things on my list are in the original article too. As a community, Linux is both exciting and horribly frustrating - technical people don't always make for good communicators, devs quite often get offended if somebody suggests a different solution to a problem, many geeks are prone to patronising those they think of as ignorant, and in my opinion, Linux is suffering from this. For me, Linux users should also teach other computer users about the benefits of open source development and how a PC doesn't need Windows to run, but quite often, the feedback is if you don't know how to do this in Linux, then you understand nothing about it and you should go back to Windows. Not helpful at all in the context of the open source vs closed source dev public debate. Yes, Linux complexity is great and I don't suggest to dumb it down. Most of the changes I would like to see are to do with presentation, not how Linux works deep down. Some changes also require devs/foundations to work together. None of this should be imposed by an outside force, it has got to come from the parties involved obviously. As stated before, I don't have a problem with using Linux, I have overcome whatever issues I have with it but this list was written with the mainstream user in mind. The list is based on my own experience, watching those around me trying to use Ubuntu on my desktops and netbook. Sometimes, when a new user points something out, you just have to admit the way Linux presents itself isn't the best way (for example, the names of apps in Ubuntu software centre, which in itself is a great idea by the way). Other times, you can explain why it works like this but when a user says I don't really need to know all that and you know that the distro you are using is meant to be user-friendly (it's not like I'm using Gentoo!), then again you have to admit that even though there is a reason why something is done a certain way, it might be useful to show fewer options, and allow for a way to show more options (for example, the bootloader). -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue There is also one *teeny* little problem along the required route to Linux utopia. Linux is supposed to be an (albeit pretty sophisticated) dialect of UNIX. And although there aren't alas many of the original unices left now - e.g. HP- UX, Solaris, AIX MacOSX, it is a fairly important issue to many who use Linux in the commercial and scientific world that portability between all these variants is maintained - as far as possible - so I'm afraid a few of your complaints refer to the UNIX way and they are rather difficult to fix and still maintain compatibility. i.e. a lot of the things we take for granted on LInux started life developed for commercial unices. rpm for instance (by my understanding) came about because the (then) standard unix packaging system pkgadd/pkgmk had copyright ownership - so redhat came up with something based on it but better. and (not sure about deb) most of the package managers such as synaptic are built on top of rpm. The original idea for KDE came from CDE (which was again copyright) - the list goes on and on - but most of the things we see are ported straight across from the BSD/SVR4 unices when lack of copyright permits (or gnu provided an almost perfect clone). Just my 10c -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Which language is most popular.
On Friday 15 October 2010, Simon P Smith wrote: On 15/10/2010 09:31, Justin Stringfellow wrote: On 15/10/2010 09:24, Peter Merchant wrote: Been very quiet here for a few days, so I thought I'd put this link up www.langpop.com Does anyone use 'D'? If you're referring to the language known as D used with Solaris' Dtrace debugger, then the answer is yes. Is there another D? Does anyone remember 'B' - showing my age! I cut my teeth on assembly, then Coral66, F77, C and C++ with a brief forced flirtation with ADA and since the web fell in love with Perl and then used Java. Recently been forced to move from Perl to PHP for web and after discovering Zend Framework and JQuery can actually do rapid prototyping web applications ;-) Next I aim to retire :-0 Si -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue It looks like I beat you to the last one then Simon (retire) but what happened to BCPL? And I freely admit you did more ADA than me ;) -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] xloadimage
Hi Ralph, thanks for that, convert/composite works fine - but gee! it's noticeably slow! Despite ImageMagick being around for many years, I never thought of it being much more than display(1) :) I'll have a look at netpbm/pnmcomp. -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] AR.Drone
Hi has anyone (with money to burn!) got one of these yet? http://ardrone.parrot.com It appears to be a fully fledged UAV (running embedded Linux) with current pilot support for the iPhone, but support for linux based phones in the pipline. I think this is stunning - amazing! There is an article about it in this weeks Electronics Weekly and apparently it is a really useful tool for artifficial intelligence experiments. -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] xloadimage - transparent images
Hi all,
Is there anyone familiar with the use of xloadimage/xsetbg who
can
give me a hint as to why I can't load a small image with a transparent
background image onto an existing background image.
In the following bash shell function, virgin.jpg is intended to cover the
whole background, with one.jpg and two.gif being smaller images (edited with
the GIMP) with transparent backgrounds.
I can't seem to load an image with a transparent background onto an existing
root window with the transparent bit showing the original background image -
the transparent bits of one.jpg and two.gif always show white.
TIA for any assistance/suggestions
Andy
---%
dologo() {
BACK=images/virgin.jpg
LOGO=images/one.jpg
COPYRIGHT=images/two.gif
# Get the root window size
set `xwininfo -root | grep Width`
shift
width=$1
set `xwininfo -root | grep Height`
shift
height=$1
echo screen is $width X $height
# Get the correct zoom factor
xzoom=`expr $width \* 100`
# 1280 is the X resolution of BACK
xzoom=`expr $xzoom \/ 1280`
yzoom=`expr $height \* 100`
# 1024 is the Y resolution of BACK
yzoom=`expr $yzoom \/ 1024`
echo xzoom=$xzoom yzoom=$yzoom
# Set the positions of the COPYRIGHT and LOGO
# copyright_x=`expr $width - 400`
copyright_x=`expr $width - 350`
copyright_y=`expr $height - 40`
# logo_x=`expr $width - 200`
logo_x=`expr $width - 150`
logo_y=`expr $height - 100`
# Blat the background
xloadimage -fullscreen -onroot -xzoom $xzoom -yzoom $yzoom ${BACK} -
merge -at $logo_x,$logo_y ${LOGO} -merge -at $copyright_x,$copyright_y
${COPYRIGHT}
}
---%
--
Andy Paterson
--
Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00
Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/
How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] xloadimage - transparent images
On Saturday 09 October 2010, you wrote: hi Andrew, TIA for any assistance/suggestions don't have 'xloadimage' on my machine, however, if you have the ImageMagick(1) software installed, 'composite' will combine images. Hi jr, thanks for that, but I dont think I can get display (the imagemagick viewer) to load onto multiple images onto the root window :( Unless you know otherwise. Thanks again -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-11-02 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Updating Software on Linux without rebooting
On Monday 06 September 2010, Keith Edmunds wrote: On Mon, 6 Sep 2010 17:24:42 +0100, d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk said: That's as I understand it, but there is apparently a company out there somewhere that can patch a running kernel for Enterprise customers. Well, actually, anyone can do that for any customer, although I wouldn't recommend it. Previous posters are right: the currently-running application will run from memory. Some upgrades (eg, Apache under Debian) will restart the daemon as part of the upgrade. -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://bit.ly/4sACa As I recall Normal user space executable files An running executable (ELF executable at any rate [ file /bin/cat to see] ) holds its executable file open and pages in from this executable file (when read-only or clean pages are required). The executable pages OUT (i.e. pages that have changed - dirty) to the swap file - from where they are paged back in if required. Thus - (and I have seen this happen) if you _overwrite_ a running programs' executable file it will more than likely crash! BUT The standard technique used for installing a new executable file (Used to be - at any rate) is to first of all delete (aka rm) the existing file before creating the new one. This invokes an ancient bit of UNIX/Linux fundamentals... a file is NOT actually deleted until no executables have it open. - thus the running program still has access to the already open ORIGINAL executable file - so pages in happilly and keeps running. But the original file is no longer visible in the file-system (but it still occupies an inode). The updating software then creates a NEW executable (the updated version) and any new invocations of the executable file lo behold will now run the updated version. Thus you can update a running executable file. As for Windows - you must be joking! -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://bit.ly/4sACa
Re: [Dorset] Audio Cassettes.
On Saturday 28 August 2010, Ralph Corderoy wrote: Hi Andy, I still have my old bbc micro and its digital (audio more like it!) casette recorder. using this python script I could do my backups to the cassette recorder - neat! Nice idea. I think they do C120s now for even more storage. And you could use one of those new tape-to-tape decks to produce the offsite copy. :-) That reminds me, I was going to see if my printer can handle vellum. http://www.ollydbg.de/Paperbak/ All I need is another python script to read the data back (and a few years!)- any offers of a read script? :) I think Dave mentions in one of the comments that it's coming along nicely. If he does another article on that I'll let the list know. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ -- Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://bit.ly/4sACa Hi Ralph, Thanks for the link. This is really thought provoking. I can immediately think of lots of 3MB digital files (ascii text files containing personal items) that I would really like to save in a technology independent way - suitable for filing away in paper form - yet computer readable. (and it would survive an EMP! can be sent as simple snail-mail) Intriguing - I am experimenting with Paperback. You are a gold-mine! Regards Andy -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://bit.ly/4sACa
Re: [Dorset] BAckup software
On Saturday 07 August 2010, Tim wrote: On Saturday 07 August 2010 13:02:14 Robert Bronsdon wrote: On Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:09:51 +0100, Peter Merchant madsmad...@netscape.net wrote: Thanks, Terry, but it is this last stage that gives the grief. k3b collects all the files and folders that I want, but has a -known- problem when it starts to write to a disk. I have used it before for cutting ISOs out to disk as distros, and it is fine with that. So the thread has ended up off topic, alot. snip Not at all, in Peters first post his first line states What does anyone recommend. I want to backup selected files/directories from my data disk. Been meaning to do this for months. So several member answer stating the software package they use to backup their files and folders and that is off topic Peter question is two part, he states in the second part of his message that the way he currently does his backup he is having problems burning the data to CD with 3KB. There is nothing in the message to suggest that he only want to continue to burn his backed-up data to CD\DVD so I fail to see where the thread has gone OT. Peter has had many suggestion from software packages to cli solutions so from his original question he has had a very good varied response Tim -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset Just to go off topic some more I have been running for years without backups - using the relatively simple notion that raid mirroring is arguably as good as backups (well - the kind of backups a home user makes anyway). I did however find that mirroring root etc is a bit of a waste performance killer - since if you lose root, chances are you are best off doing a reinstall anyway. I have two mirrored disks (mainly for /home, but I also my multimedia files for mediatomb aka a ps3 my TV). I have survived around 10 years or longer pretty safely using this arrangement PROVIDED you watch the state of each disk in the mirror, when a disk fails - you _rapidly_ buy a replacement (whilst possibly continuing running on a wing and a prayer!) slap in the new disk - resynch and - carry on! I can imagine that if I had a usb disk I could theoretically add that to my raid - sync it, then detach it from my raid and store it somewhere as a potentially mountable disk snapshot. A nice feature is that resynching is a background process - slows the machine down a little - but not much. But I am now on about my 3rd pair of disks and as I say I have survived ok for over 10 years ( many upgrades of Redhat through Fedora 12). I have so much old junk in my /home though!! Linux Raid Rules. Andy Paterson -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] BAckup software
On Saturday 07 August 2010, Keith Edmunds wrote: On Sat, 7 Aug 2010 21:14:14 +0100, andy.pater...@ntlworld.com said: I have been running for years without backups - using the relatively simple notion that raid mirroring is arguably as good as backups NO! It might work for you, which is fine; however, there is a world of difference between RAID and backups. RAID will hopefully protect your data in the event of a hardware failure, there is a small subset of classes of hardware failure that it will not protect against. Backups will allow you to restore lost data. The data may be lost by: - a hardware problem - finger trouble (rm -rf * in the wrong directory, or cp backupversion currentversion) - subsequent editing (I want this file as it was before the changes I made last Thursday) - a software bug - a break-in - power failure at the wrong time - theft of your PC - deleting, only later realising that you still need the data ...and so on. RAID protects you against some of the first category, and none of the rest. As I say, if it works for you, fine, but it is wrong to assert in general that raid mirroring is arguably as good as backups: it isn't. FWIW: I've resorted to backups to recover from each of the first four above, and the last. All my systems run RAID. Keith -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset I did say arguably. As I said attach a new temporary (usb?) device, resync detach == backup - no downtime. -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
Re: [Dorset] BAckup software
On Saturday 07 August 2010, Andrew R Paterson wrote: On Saturday 07 August 2010, Keith Edmunds wrote: On Sat, 7 Aug 2010 21:14:14 +0100, andy.pater...@ntlworld.com said: I have been running for years without backups - using the relatively simple notion that raid mirroring is arguably as good as backups NO! It might work for you, which is fine; however, there is a world of difference between RAID and backups. RAID will hopefully protect your data in the event of a hardware failure, there is a small subset of classes of hardware failure that it will not protect against. Backups will allow you to restore lost data. The data may be lost by: - a hardware problem - finger trouble (rm -rf * in the wrong directory, or cp backupversion currentversion) - subsequent editing (I want this file as it was before the changes I made last Thursday) - a software bug - a break-in - power failure at the wrong time - theft of your PC - deleting, only later realising that you still need the data ...and so on. RAID protects you against some of the first category, and none of the rest. As I say, if it works for you, fine, but it is wrong to assert in general that raid mirroring is arguably as good as backups: it isn't. FWIW: I've resorted to backups to recover from each of the first four above, and the last. All my systems run RAID. Keith -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset I did say arguably. As I said attach a new temporary (usb?) device, resync detach == backup - no downtime. And I am -obviously- talikng about mirroring (raid 1). -- Andy Paterson -- Next meeting: Blandford Forum, Tuesday 2010-09-07 20:00 http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2645413 Chat: http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.blitzed.orgchannel=%23dorset List info: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dorset
